1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer system security. More particularly, the present invention relates to scanning of user-generated web content for malicious behavior.
2. Description of the Related Art
User content hosting web sites, such as eBay™, YouTube™, MySpace™, Facebook™, and Google™ AdSense, allow users to post user supplied content, such as sales advertisement web pages and personal web pages. User content hosting web sites often need to support the posting of complex web page information in order to compete with other similar sites. Malicious code, commonly termed malware, can be easily distributed via these web sites.
Often the user content hosting web sites allow users to post code, such as JavaScript, which can be used to exploit vulnerabilities on a user's browser. For example, these exploits can be used in phishing attacks or to download malware to the user's hard drive. Additionally, attackers can post links to external domains that host malware. Without the ability to conclusively scan these links, malware distribution can occur, placing the user content hosting web sites' customers at risk.
Currently, some user content hosting web sites utilize manpower intensive solutions to attempt to address this growing problem. For example, a suspicious user supplied web page listing is reviewed by a trained technician for malware. As hundreds of thousands of listings are generated each day, these solutions are an enormous cost to a web site that hosts user supplied content.